LIFE ISN’T GRIM FOR THE REAPER
Former NHL enforcer is doing well, but worries about concussion effects
SASKATO O N Stu Grimson’s old occupation is carved into his face — a scar here, an indent there, an array of fists leaving their mark at rinks from Vancouver to Florida.
The brain, he’s not so sure about. Grimson — whose nickname is “the Grim Reaper” — admits he’s concerned. The former NHL enforcer, who fought more than 200 times in the big leagues, has watched some of his old grappling peers fall by the wayside — early deaths, post-mortem brain studies, CTE diagnoses.
Grimson will someday donate his brain to science, so they can see how it handled all that trauma.
“I want to make sure I make the right decision in terms of who gets that organ. But it can be part of my legacy,” says Grimson, who was in Saskatoon this week as the keynote speaker for the Brain Blitz Gala, staged by the Saskatchewan Brain Injury Association. “I’m happy to have the game, the medicine, the science, advance in some way, if I can offer that gift.
“It was a pretty straightforward decision. I’m not going to be using it. It’ll be a shell of a person that ultimately departs this planet, and whoever needs the component parts of that shell is welcome to it.”
Grimson says he feels great — an occasional bout of nausea or headaches if he’s not treating himself properly, but that’s rare.
It’s not something he ponders in the dark of night, he says. But the thought lingers.
“I will say I’m a little bit concerned about going into my 60s and what does that look like for somebody like me?” says the 52-year-old Grimson. “It may involve a handicap of some kind, a disability, a lingering effect. It’s hard to know.
“To the extent I can be proactive ... I’ve learned enough to know that if I look after myself, get regular rest, eat well, focus on certain types of foods and nutrition, stay in a good routine from a physical point of view, I’m doing my best to negate any of those symptoms cropping up later in life. I guess I can say, with some optimism, that I’ve been pretty successful to this point.”
At a time when many people call for the elimination of fighting, Grimson has reached the opposite conclusion: Hockey needs fights, or the idea of fights, as a safety measure.
He knows about Ken Dryden’s latest book and the goaltending great’s call to eliminate all hits to the head, in any form, whether it be a fist, an elbow, or anything else.
“I think it’s a noble goal,” he says. “Given the nature of our sport, it would require a radical revision to the way the sport is played today. And when you’ve got essentially 10 skaters, add a couple of goaltenders to further take up some of the space on the surface, flying at a really rapid rate of speed ... I don’t know that it’s a goal you’re ever going to achieve.
“I think there’s still a place in the game for (fighting); I really do. It’s an extra measure of accountability beyond the rules, and beyond supplemental discipline. If there are physical players on your team that the other side knows will hold them accountable for acting up and taking liberties with their smaller, skilled players ... my experience, having operated in that culture, is that you’ll discourage those people from taking liberties.
“So to me, in this big quiver of arrows we have in our arsenal to discourage head trauma and delivered blows to the head, I think that’s one worth keeping. I really do.”
Grimson says the majority of hockey head trauma comes not from fights, but from high-speed contact. If he had to do it over, given what we know now, he’d change just one thing: The way he handles and reports his symptoms. He’d be quicker and more honest about how he’s feeling.
“I wasn’t always as forthcoming as I needed to be,” he says. “I’m sure that contributed to the way the game unravelled for me.”
Grimson left hockey after concussion symptoms that just wouldn’t go away. A 2001 fight with Sandy McCarthy was his last; the symptoms hit him on the flight home and it dragged on more than a year.
In his 20s, concussions gave him “a glassy, almost dizzy sensation.” By his mid-30s, nausea stepped into his life; his body felt heavy; headaches were frequent.
At its worst, light was an enemy; he couldn’t stand on his feet for long stretches; conversations in crowded rooms were difficult.
“It was off-putting; a hard and really awkward time,” he says.
But it was also extremely difficult to explain. Nobody can peer into your cranium and see a cracked brain, the way they can ogle a cracked bone.
“I’d liken it to a groin strain,” Grimson says. “You don’t really have an objective X-ray test you can show somebody. You’re just asking people to believe you; you’re describing your own internal symptoms, and you feel a little bit guilty.
“You wish you had something to show somebody — look, I point at this image, and you can see my fracture, or you can see my separated shoulder.
“With a concussion, you don’t have that. And a lot of athletes found that frustrating. The thinking goes along the lines of ‘do they really believe me?’”
Grimson — who finished with 39 points and 2,113 penalty minutes in 729 NHL games — found a post-hockey landing spot. The eloquent brawler got his law degree, is a practising lawyer, and works as a colour analyst on Nashville Predators games.
He nods when asked if he’d play the same style today, knowing what he knows, as long as he’s more aware of what to do when things go fuzzy at the rink. “Exactly,” he said.
“I think that’s fair to say. I really feel that way.”
I’m doing my best to negate any of those symptoms cropping up later in life. I guess I can say, with some optimism, that I’ve been pretty successful to this point.